1. Technical Field
This invention relates to systems for monitoring electrical components of an automotive vehicle, and more particularly to a system and method for monitoring current flow thorough a resistive heating element of a window defogger/defroster circuit and determining if current flow through the heating element has been interrupted so as to determine if the window has been broken, such as during a theft.
2. Discussion
Many automotive vehicles employ one or more electrically resistive heating elements embedded in or secured onto an outer surface of a window of the vehicle, such as a rear window. When a current is passed through the heating element the heating element becomes very hot, thus defogging and/or defrosting the window.
It would be highly desirable to provide some form of system and method for monitoring the current flow through the resistive heating element to determine if the heating element becomes damaged and/or broken. This, in turn, could be used to provide an indication that the window on which the resistive heating element is disposed on or embedded into has been broken, thus indicating a possible attempted theft of the vehicle. Such a system and method could also be used to determine if a break has developed in the resistive heating element, thus reducing troubleshooting and diagnostic service time which might be required to make such a determination.
It is therefore a principal object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for monitoring current flow through a resistive heating element attached to or embedded within a window of an automotive vehicle, which system and method is capable of determining if the resistive heating element has been broken.
Furthermore, it is another object of the present invention to provide a method and apparatus for monitoring current flow through a resistive heating element secured to or embedded within a window of a vehicle, where the method and apparatus is simple to construct, relatively low in cost and low in space requirements.